Aegis Citadel
Here we have the often mentioned Aegis Citadel, one of the most potent defensive cards available. The only really remarkable thing about the card is its special ability – when you place the Aegis Citadel on the board, all creatures matching the element of that Field become Invisible. For example, if you placed the Citadel on a Fire Field, all of your Fire creatures would be completely immune to attacks. This is an incredibly powerful ability, made even more so by the fact that, with the release of Set 2, decks based around a single element will become much more popular.
The card itself can take a bit of punishment, with 5HP, so it will be able to do its job for at least a couple of turns, and this is also helped by the fact that is has no Blind Spot for your opponent to take advantage of, which will help it last through the onslaught its bound to receive.

Unfortunately, the card is a little expensive to play – with a Summoning Cost of 5 you might not be able to play it exactly when you want to. The card also uses the Fortress special rule, which means that it cannot directly attack enemy cards; it can only counter attack, and even when it does that, it only has an Attack Power of 1.

If your opponent plays one of these cards against you, there are a couple of options available to you. The easiest, quickest way of neutralising the Citadel is to Fieldquake it. This will change the type of cards that receives the Invisibility effect, so a Fieldquake can be especially effective if your opponent isn’t using the element on the reverse side of the tile. If course, if they are using a Biolith deck, and they play the Citadel on the centre square (Biolith on both sides, so Fieldquaking will have no effect), your only recourse is to destroy the Citadel itself – remember, it never receives its own Invisibility bonus, so the Citadel itself is vulnerable to attack. Anything you can use to destroy the Citadel quickly is useful here – one of the Dragons, or the Arc Satellite Cannon are good choices, but ultimately you’ll want to get it off the board ASAP. If you are using Set 2, the new Hammer of Juno card is also a good choice, as it can simply remove the Citadel from the board right away.

There are a couple of card combinations which are also very effective when used with the Aegis Citadel. First and foremost is using another Citadel. If you can get 2 Aegis Citadels into play, both on Biolith Fields, then both Citadels will be Invisible, along with any other Biolith cards you play. This is obviously a very strong position to be in, but it has one major flaw – enemy Fieldquakes can ruin the entire set up. This is where the Lesser Granvenoa comes in handy – placing it next to your quake-vulnerable field will lock it down to its Biolith tile, and if you can place that on a Biolith Field too, you’ll be completely unstoppable. Admittedly, it isn’t a situation that is likely to occur very often, but you can be sure that once it does, your opponent will surrender almost immediately.

So, as you can see, the Aegis Citadel is a card with amazing defensive potential. It has its drawbacks, but if you can get it into play, its bonuses will far outweigh these flaws. If you are using a deck with focuses on a single element, the Citadel is an amazing card to use, but if your deck is much more varied, you’ll probably get less use from it.

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Posted by alienclay on Thu, 3rd Apr 2008, at 10:00
placing two citadels, or one citadel/one granvenoa is nice, esp because you can have more than one of both of these in your libary, but setups that put out more than one base card tend to get a bit too defensive in nature. i like to use the citadel/edin combo with high enemy discard, it's more versitile, allowing you to protect anything on wood fields and wood creatures anywhere, but you need to have a good bit of mana comming in or stocked up before playing it because her 2 activation makes it hard to summon or save when you have a persistant enemy. (hello survivable Freedonian Wanderer)
Posted by Icepick on Thu, 3rd Apr 2008, at 10:40
Something else just occured to me about the Aegis Citadel, but rather than update the Spotlight, I figured I'd just post it here. In Set 2, there are a number of cards which allow a field to count as more than 1 element, so for example, a Fire Field coule be treated as both Fire and Biolith. I've not tested this in game, but in theory, if an Aegis Citadel was placed on a Field like this, both elements would gain the invisibility effect. If anyone tries this in game and confirm or rebuke this, please let me know!
Posted by Bany on Fri, 4th Apr 2008, at 05:24
Yes it gives Invisibility to all elements gained from field under it. Avesome, isn't it?
Posted by Bany on Fri, 4th Apr 2008, at 06:00
Yes it gives Invisibility to all elements gained from field under it. Avesome, isn't it?
Posted by OverZee on Fri, 4th Apr 2008, at 11:14
what only the problem is, is that if you have 2 fortresses out, you have very less cards to attack. that's the only problem of fortresses.
Posted by Merco on Fri, 4th Apr 2008, at 11:28
I've just noticed something that Set 2 adds; if you have enough mana to summon a Biolith creature, but the summonihg lock is active, the creature can still be summoned, provided that it's on a Biolith field. However, hardly anybody knows this...
Posted by Icepick on Sat, 5th Apr 2008, at 05:26
That rule isn't specific to Set 2, it has ALWAYS been there, and EVERYBODY knows about it.
Posted by Merco on Sun, 6th Apr 2008, at 10:43
Sorry!
Posted by Griever on Mon, 7th Apr 2008, at 13:01
There is a great combo to do with this card. Place it on a Wood field, and play Edin on any other. Provided the opponent doesn't flip the field under the citadel, both creatures will have Invisibility. I've done it a few times so far.
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